WWE Montez Ford: I broke my back and still made it to WrestleMania

Montez Ford says he “broke his back” a few days before defending the Raw tag team titles at WWE WrestleMania 36.

The Street Profits star was injured during a television recording, when he attempted his Tope Con Hilo signature from the ring to the outside.

The 29-year-old attempted to dive into Austin Theory during a six-man fight on Raw, but lost his man and landed hard on the steel ramp.

But the pain didn’t stop him from joining Angelo Dawkins and successfully defending his belts against Theory and Angel Garza on the Show of Shows.

During this exclusive chat with Tony Quant of Mirror Sport, the The Street Profits star discussed his chemistry as a team, thinking of NXT becoming a third brand within WWE, joining the Raw roster, and much more.

Starting with you, Angelo, I understand that during your time at Harper College you must share the wrestling mat with some familiar UFC faces, including heavyweight contender Curtis Blaydes. What was that experience like and was MMA a consideration for you?

Dawkins Oh yes, Curtis was there, he transferred my sophomore year to Harper. Me and him went a lot. We had a lot of big boys in the room at the time, that was a lot of fun. However, I was purely focused on becoming a professional fighter. He was struggling a bit, but Curtis was strictly fighting. By the time he would come in the season he was almost halfway there.

Do you feel that the time on the amateur mats helped you move to the professional fight?

Dawkins Yes, it was a little easy. The only difficult part was facial expressions and being more theatrical about things than usual. Lowering the movements, I lowered them quite quickly. Some of them are quite similar, so I took what I learned on the mat and applied it there and added some theatrical ones to it.

They both spent time developing at the WWE Performance Center and with NXT. We’ve seen changes to NXT in recent years from a developing brand to a major brand alongside Raw and SmackDown. What was it like to see NXT evolve from within?

Ford: It’s crazy, I mean especially for Dawkins because he was there before the transition. They used to have a street crew handing out flyers to people to attend shows and now they are selling arenas. Just seeing him change so much from what he was five years ago is a milestone and a huge statement.

I think the brand is just beginning, the agreement with the USA Network has started and the success it has collected has been surprising. For us, being in one of the first episodes and seeing it evolve has been a blessing for everyone.

Can you remember the exact moment when you both felt you click as a team?

Dawkins We always had that chemistry because we were great before being a tag team, so it helped a lot. But I think the moment everything clicked, I think when we went against Forgotten Sons, TakeOver: Phoenix and we had a TV recording there.

We had this game and that’s when I felt everything click. We didn’t even have to talk to each other, we already knew what they thought. We were synchronized the whole time and in tune and from that moment we never looked back.

And only after that, what do you think is the secret to getting chemistry as a team?

Ford: Patience. Because you will be placed in many different situations with your tag partner and you will have to learn how to get out of them in all of those situations. With that comes patience. By simply going through things and enduring them as you go through them, you discover each other and discover how to deal with them in the future.

Since they spend so much time together, have you found that during this pandemic it was difficult to be apart?

Ford: We do a lot of group chats and everything, everyone is connected but not in person. We still know what is going on. We call and he (Dawkins) is doing his things for his son’s room and I let him know what we’re doing. Just doing pranks and pranks to keep everyone in check while this happens and now we have Madden’s league.

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The chemistry you have has obviously been successful and we have seen you win the NXT and now the Raw Tag Team Championship. Can you tell us about what it was like to be changed to Raw in the draft in October and how was that transition?

Dawkins The transition was amazing, outside of us having to travel around the country every week, we really didn’t have to do much in NXT, the transition has been great.

A group of guys in the locker room that we have been with in the Performance Center, so we met almost everyone in the locker room and they welcomed us with open arms. They hugged us and gave us tips we didn’t understand about being on Raw and gave us details on that. We are almost right where we left off.

Obviously, his success has opened many doors and we recently saw him perform at WrestleMania for the first time. Given the circumstances, do you think that in the coming years you will still remember WrestleMania 36 with good memories?

Ford: Absolutely, of course. Just the fact that we didn’t just go in as champions and go out as champions, I had my wife by my side, my brother by my side.

We came out with a WrestleMania victory, as of now The Street Profits are 1-0 at WrestleMania. Only one of the things that we will appreciate, is WrestleMania and, no matter what, it is the best stage of all and something that we will appreciate until we can no longer move.

As a team that thrives so much from the live crowd, did it have to be weird to step out into an empty arena the first time?

Ford: Well I mean we always want a live audience that gets your adrenaline more than anything else and we love kicking it with the fans. But I will also say that we have been there so long that we are used to, especially in that building.

We are used to it being quiet and then we trust ourselves to speak a lot of punches to our opponents. It was different for the first two minutes, then we thought ‘we’ve practiced a lot here’ and then it turned into another day at the office.

Finally, Montez, I just wanted to ask you about the hit you took on Raw just before WrestleMania, which looked horrible! Does it hurt more to fight in front of non-fans and not be able to feed on their reactions?

Ford: So I think if you’re there, you’re a little bit out of breath. I guess you’re trying to make up for the dead space, so you’re out of breath and constantly moving and feeding on everyone in there.

Okay, you have to entertain the masses at home, but you’re feeding on everyone in the ring. The blow to the outside? That was nothing, just another day at the office. However, I will say this, I broke my back and still made it on time three days before WrestleMania!

You can watch The Street Profits and more WWE Raw action every Monday at 1 a.m., only on BT Sport 1 HD.